Sony Ericsson X1 Xperia
As a company Sony Ericsson hasn't been doing too well of late, to put it mildly, and that before the world economy had gone to pot. Some say the the X1 is crucial to the companies fortunes, but let's hope that's an exaggeration as while the X1 is not disaster, neither is it likely to halt Apple's you-know-what phone from flying off the shelves. However, as far as Windows Mobile powered phones go, it's got a lot going for it.
Sony Ericsson has a long association with smartphones, with the company being one of the first to attempt the concept of the can-do-it-all, multi-tasking wonder phone. That phone was the P800, and the idea of it appealed to me so much I actually bought one. However, while I persevered with it for a while it never really lived up to its promise and I soon realised that while the concept was good, the execution was flawed – the phone was simply too ahead of its time.
The P800 seems like a long time ago now, and after several successors to that seminal phone, Sony Ericsson has finally abandoned the Symbian UIQ operating system and thrown its lot in with Microsoft. Yes, the X1 Xperia is based on the Windows Mobile, in its latest 6.1 iteration an operating system that it's fair to say is tolerated rather than loved.
As with the likes of the HTC Touch Pro, the X1 is a high-end smartphone that offers a touch screen combined with a slider keyboard underneath. Naturally, as a Windows based phone a stylus is still necessary at times, and you'll find one nestling at the rear left.
By moving to Windows Mobile its latest high-end smartphone has lost something of that Sony Ericsson look and feel but there are certainly traces of the company's DNA is some of the phones features.
For a start, whoever made the decision to stick a conventional headphone jack at the top should be congratulated. No messing about with USB remote control accessories or using poor bundled headphones – you can just stick your own favoured pair right in for enjoying music or video.
Storage is simply enormous by the standards of the likes of the iPhone - 512MB of RAM, with 384MB free, with a microSD card slot available underneath the rear cover enabling you to add up to another 16MB, which is recommended to be used for storing music and video to keep performance up.
Appearance wise the X1 has an expensive look, with brushed metal front and back and a silver trim all the way round. The buttons at the bottom are a glossy black. For all its abilities and the slide out keyboard it's not too big either, measuring 110 x 53 x 16.7 mm and weighing in a reasonable 145g.
The star attraction is the screen, which offers a stupendous 800 x 480 resolution, which does wonders for web browsing and even for more mundane tasks such as viewing your Contacts - you can simply see more at the same time. The X1 bests the number of pixels on the HTC Touch Pro and matches the resolution on the HTC Touch HD.
However, it does make things look a little small. What's more many applications don't like the extra screen res – we were keen to try out the new Skyfire browser app only to find that it wouldn't run as 640 x 480 was the top res it would support.
Even more innovative is that the central select button also doubles acts as an actual mini- trackpad – so simply scrubbing your thumb up and down lets you scroll. It does have limitations as there's no actual cursor, so there's no fine control, but you can move sideways and I soon found myself using it my main means of navigation.
Above the scrollpad are two keys for making soft-menu selections and to the sides are the call activate and end buttons. There's a dedicated 'OK' button, which makes it possible to close applications, or at least remove them from the screen, without having to resort to the stylus. These buttons are all just a touch too small though, making it all a bit more fiddly than it needs to be.
Fortunately, Sony Ericsson has done something rather remarkable with the phone dialer application - it has made it usable. Press the phone button dial button and the on screen buttons are actually large enough for you to dial, something that somehow seems to have escaped the attention of designers of previous Windows Mobile based touch screen phones.
Even better, make a call and the call End button appears as a large oblong at the bottom of the screen, making it easy to end the call. It's actually easier than using the physical buttons, which is the opposite of what's normally true.
Turn the phone on its side and the camera buttons falls neatly under the right index finger, a typical Sony Ericsson touch that differentiates it from the HTC's. One can select the spot focus by simply tapping on the screen and the on-screen controls let you select video, or send your images via SMS. The camera resolution is a decent 3-megapixels but camera lag, the rather clunky operation and what turned out to be slightly washed out images mean that its not up to the standard of Sony's more consumer focused Cybershot badged camera phones.
One of the stand-out features is naturally the sliding keyboard that emerges from underneath the screen. The continues the quality feel of the product with a silver metal look and feel. The keys are quite spread out apart but there isn't quite enough travel as I would have liked. In addition the keyboard lacks the dedicated number key row that so appealed on the HTC Touch Pro. I do like the way the screen is angled up slightly on the keyboard when you slid it out, and sensibly it doesn't topple over when you place it on a table.
Windows Mobile based smartphones these days always tend to have third party interfaces slapped over the top of them, and the X1 is no different. Sony Ericsson had hyped up the X1's 'Panels' interface but in truth they're rather disappointing. Press the panel button on the front and nine mini screens appears and you can scroll between these. Select one and it becomes the main interface. Each one offers a different look and feel and offers different functionality, with the idea that you can customise your device to have quick access to the functions you like.
One offers a a clock and an RSS feed along with some a number of functions, while another is simply an animated screensaver featuring fish. Moving between them is sluggish, as a low res version appears, freezes the device for a few moment, before the high res version kicks in.
And even if you like them, the ugly Windows Mobile dialogue buttons are only a few clicks away. It actually reminds me of Vista 3D Taskbar - a flashy but destined to be little used feature.
More panels are available online and the Facebook one we tried was particularly creative, with each of your friends appearing as images inside slowly colliding bubbles, and their status displaying across the screen at the top. Overall though, the Panels have a less natural feel compared to HTC's Touch Flo 3D interface.
In terms of features there's no much the X1 can't do. With Office Mobile, Google Maps with GPS, MSN Messenger, and the supplied Opera Mobile browser, all doing the business. However, we noted a few quirks, such as the earlier mentioned Skyfire failing to run and the same occurred with Google's Java based mail application.
Battery life is a real upside for the device though, as you can be confident of getting through at least a single day of medium use - that is some web browsing, emailing, music playing and phone calls, on a single charge.
As such, there's actually a lot to like about the X1 Xperia. It's not nearly as slick as a iPhone or a G1 by any stretch of the imagination but if you want or need the sheer flexibility of Windows Mobile, or are simply locked in by the corporate compliance of the device, and you want a physical keyboard then it's really down to a choice of the X1 or the HTC Touch Pro. A lot of this will be preference, but the smaller size, lighter weight, superior battery life, and higher res screen are likely to swing it in the X1's favour for many.
Despite the nonsense that are the Panel's, the X1 does genuinely have more personality, and with the external camera button, the scroll panel control, the dialer with large buttons trick and the high resolution it's actually the easier to use. Occasional sluggishness and some glitches do spoil it somewhat but overall, if you want Windows Mobile and a keyboard, the X1 gets our nod.
Specification
Frequencies: Quad-band EDGE, GPRS, GSM, HDSPA
Connectivity: 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
Dimensions (WxDxH): 110 x 53 x 16.7 mm
OS: Windows Mobile 6.1
Display: 3in 800 x 480 LCD screen
Storage: 512MB flash memory, expandable microSD storage
Camera: 3-megapixel camera, video capture
Software: Opera Mobile 9.5, Office Mobile
GPS: A-GPS
Battery life: 3G mode - 833hrs standby, 6.5hrs talk time
Weight: 146g
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